And the world is as fatuous as Southey’s old “Caspar”, and we of the awakening twentieth century are sorely perplexed “Peterkins”. Why must things like that be; and why do men speak of successful human slaughter as a “famous victory”; and why do martial music and blare of trumpet and drum and epaulettes and ribbons and medals and barbaric pomp in general--succeed in silencing the death groans and in hiding from view the bloody agonies and the demon horrors of the battlefield? “Why ’twas a very wicked thing” Quoth little Wilhelmine. “Nay, nay, my little girl”, said he, “It was a famous victory.” “But what good came of it at last”? * * * * * “Why, that I cannot tell”, said he, “But ’twas a famous victory.” And the voice of the questioning child is lost in answerless fatuity. When will the world hear and honestly answer? LOUIS XIV. Louis le Grand, greatest of the Bourbons, lived too long. For seventy-two years (1643-1775) Louis was king and for, at least, fifty years his power was absolute. Louis’ long reign had as contemporary English history the disastrous Civil War and the beheading of Charles I. (1649); the Cromwellian Protectorate (1653); the Restoration of the Stuarts (1660); the reign of the Merry Monarch, the misfortunes of James II., the revolution of 1688, the battle of the Boyne, and the final deposition and expulsion of James II.; the accession to the throne of England as King William III., of Louis’ most inveterate foe, William, Prince of Orange (1688); the death of King William III. (1702); the reign of Queen Anne, her death, and the beginning of the House of Hanover (1715). On the continent the Thirty Years’ War was happily ended by the treaty of Westphalia (1648). Peter the Great ascended the throne of Russia (1682). In the great battle of Pultowa (1709) the power of Sweden was practically annihilated; the madly victorious career of Charles XII. of Sweden was stopped, and his successes together with the more solid attainments of his predecessor, Gustavus Adolphus, were rendered negative; Russia advanced over her prostrate foe to her place among the nations. For forty years success, pleasure, honor, power, and glory beamed in full radiance upon Louis--both as man and monarch. Had he died even as late as 1702 when William, his great rival foe, died, Louis would have been, to all appearances, the most blessed of mortals and his reign the most glorious in the annals of France.